Tag: Glory

The letter of Jude, a the letter to the Hebrews may seem a little strange to our ears. [Of course we should never presume a familiarity with the scriptures – always we are learners].

In it like the epistle to the Hebrews, we find fierce warnings as well as references to angels and uniquely in the New Testament, a reference to Enoch.

For those who missed him, Enoch turns up briefly in the canonical scriptures in the book of Genesis. [Chapter 5 vs 21-24]

He is the father of Methuselah – the one credited with living 969 years, and also one of only two figures in the scriptures of whom it is attested, they did not die. The other being the prophet Elijah. Like Elijah great traditions grew up around Enoch and there are three books of Enoch which were a part of the apocalyptic literature of the people of Jesus’ day. Indeed these books were read as scripture until the third century.

HOwever for all its strangeness, Jude covers much that is familiar – echoing Paul’s condemnation of false teachers, and asking that mercy and gentleness be shown to the wayward. But perhaps Jude will be most recognisable for its wonderful Benediction – the blessing pronounced upon God at its close. Still in use in many churches today, it reminds us that our primary calling as Christians is the worship and blessing of God. That to quote the Westminster confession, the reason for our existence is to ‘glorify God’.

You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all; and you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

There are two brief things we might consider here

Firstly, once again, Paul has hard things to say to the Corinthians in the letter, yet at the same time he sees quite clearly the Life of Christ amongst them. The Life that he has proclaimed amongst them is now inscribed on their hearts.

Paul looks on the heart – he does not judge with the eye, he has learned to see as Christ sees.

What is more he sees the Christian Faith not in static terms but in terms of growth – extraordinarily ‘into the glory of the Lord’, or put another way, into the likeness of Christ. So much of Western Protestant Christianity in particular denies our ‘telos’, our end, an thus is directionless. It sets no path before us by which we may so e transformed, indeed it isn’t even expected. We rather ‘hope for heaven’ beyond this life, rather than look in Hope for its gradual emergence amongst us.

Secondly we may well ask of ourselves, in what sense are we ‘a letter of Christ’? How is this ‘shown’? How are we being transformed in and through our common life that as a people we are changed from one degree of glory to another?

We thought yesterday about how we are still dominated by the Narrative of Death – and Moses too is fearful. This Strange God, the ‘I AM’, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who IS Life challenges Moses to his core. HE is exposed before him – his weakness, his fallibility, his stumbling speech. As he is afraid of Life, so he knows that the Israelites are not ready for this Life.

God in his infinite mercy, meets him where he is. As before he had bargained with Abraham over Sodom and Gomorrah, so too he gives him something ‘magical’, which Moses is still at a level that he will entrust himself to it [Pharaoh’s magicians do the same – Ex 7:8-13], he gives him Aaron – but all the same God’s anger is kindled in the face of such unbelief and it is only through blood that Moses is protected.

As Moses and Aaron draw near to Pharaoh, as Life is revealed in the servants of the LORD, immediately the Death Narrative struggles to re-assert itself. Knowing that its time is limited, it seeks to take to itself all that it can. In the midst of this conflict, Moses pleads with the LORD for a quiet life. But this Life is not quiet. Moses has little comprehension of what he is caught up in – no sense of Awe, that God’s purposes are infinitely greater than simply changing the mind of Pharaoh – rather that in the Exodus which he will effect for his people, his Glory may be revealed.

This is the Gift that is given to the Church – to reveal his Glory in the resurrection of Christ – present amongst us – Manifested in lives of worship and holy obedience.

And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.

Last week we celebrated the Epiphany of Christ, and we are now in the season of the Epiphany which extends until the first Sunday in February when we shall celebrate Candlemas – the feast of the Presentation, albeit a day late, for that feast, falls on Saturday February 2nd.

This habit we have in the church of shifting festivals to the nearest Sunday is a symptom of something which I fear in the end will do us no good. Of making faith fit our lives, rather than making our lives fit our faith. Christmas is unusual, to an extent in that we still come to church on that day irrespective of whether or not it is Sunday, and some folk still come to worship through Holy week, but on the whole we have given up on the celebration of major festivals on the day they fall. We either transfer them to an adjoining Sunday, or ignore them altogether. When, I wonder was the last time we celebrated The Feast of the Transfiguration? It strikes me that such a festival, with its theme of the Glory of Christ, falling as it does in August . . .??? Does anyone know the date? Well it is August 6th – a time when here in New Zealand we are stuck in the darkness of winter. What a wonderful idea to come to church in the darkness and find it ablaze with candles as we celebrate that feast.

Taking time out to worship according to the calendar might not seem much, but it is a simple discipline of ordering our lives to faith – and it is in the accumulation of such small things that our distinct Christian identity becomes more manifest – as we are conformed to the Life of the risen Christ in the church. The gift of the whole season of Epiphany is about the manifestation of the Glory of Christ. Four weeks to contemplate Him. Actually the church gives us half the year to contemplate Christ. From Advent, through Christmas and Epiphany, with perhaps a brief break, then into Lent, and then Easter, Pentecost and Trinity – the subject of our attention is not ‘how to live the Christian life – how to be relevant in the world – how to do mission’ – no. for half the year we are called to attend to the person and work of Christ and that is very necessary.
The crying problem of the church today is not the irrelevance of the church to the world – that church doesn’t fit the world we live in – it is not fitting our faith to our lives – no. It is that so often church does not fit the life of God revealed to us in Christ, and that I suggest is in no small part because we give insufficient time to the contemplation of his glory.
Epiphany especially is given to us for that contemplation. The Glory of Christ is revealed to us – the traditional readings are his revealing to us in the visit of the magi, in the changing of water of wine at Cana where he reveals his glory, the presentation at the temple where Simeon cries out ‘I have seen thy salvation which thou hast prepared in the face of all people’, how he is revealed as the Servant of The Lord, the fulfillment of Scripture at Nazareth = and today – in his baptism – he is revealed as the Son of God – and Uniquely baptised with the Spirit. He is Clothed with the Spirit of God. The Spirit that had departed the Temple and caused the people to cry in dismay ‘Ichabod’ – the Glory has departed. He is clothed as were Adam and Eve at first, not in animal skins, but in the Glory of God. Having taken their life in their own hands, the glory departed.
Perhaps we do not notice this, because unlike the Israelites of old, like those first disciples at Cana, we have not seen his Glory – we do not see how our lives are so small in comparison with the Glorious majesty of God revealed in Christ – we seek too readily to move away from contemplation of his glory – his beauty, his majesty. We want something Practical – some hints and tips for Our everyday lives, not realising that he seeks to utterly transform the essential nature of those lives.

A few weeks ago I saw a rather sad Facebook post – it said ‘Of course if it had been three wise women who came to the tomb, they would have brought something Far more practical, like a supply of nappies and a blanket!’ And it struck me as very sad that someone would use what is a story of immense mystery – something which Mary ponders in her heart – was used to make cheap political gain from. I wanted to say “can you not see?” Can we not see His glory? Have we not been held captive by it? That these gifts tell us here is a child like no other . . . like no other. He comes to be one with us – but he is like no other. He embraces fully our humanity . . . but he is like no other

Jesus comes with the crowds – they are All coming for baptism – he is in the crowds that are all asking if John the Baptist is the Messiah – their Messiah stands among them – they do not see his glory. They do not recognise their Messiah. They look as anyone else would look – John in his own way is impressive – he stands out, certainly! ‘Perhaps he Is the one’, they are all thinking. But they are wrong. They do not See.

So Jesus comes to be baptised . . . and his baptism sets him apart. 21Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, 22and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” His baptism is like no other – he alone is baptised with the Holy Spirit. He alone is declared to be the beloved of God. Just this week I was reading about perhaps the cardinal sin – that of Envy. It is said that Jesus was crucified because of the Envy of the Pharisees – he was like no other – there was something about him that set him apart. He was a tall poppy – and we know what we do with tall poppies! The Life of God is Too Big for us – let’s cut him down to size.

And we also try to cut him down to size. ‘Let’s think on something practical – lets not contemplate the mystery, the gold of kingship, the frankincense of the one who ever lives to intercede for us – the Myrrh – his death’. A death foreshadowed in his humbly going down into the water of baptism. How readily we turn from thinking about Christ to thinking about ourselves. How often do we think of our baptism, how infrequently, even on this Sunday, about His.

This setting apart of Christ at his baptism is I suggest an offense to our modern predilection for not wanting to know of anything more beyond the scope of Our lives. As I meditated upon this earlier in the week, I was reminded of a story – a story with which this ‘cutting down the tall poppy’ was thrown into a horrible irony and contrast.

It is said there was an old woman, who was in hell. The angels of God as they are wont to do sought desperately to find a way to bring her out of hell, and discovered that Once in her life, she had committed a kind act. A passing stranger had asked her for food, and the woman had thrown him an onion. Well it wasn’t a Huge thing – but the angels saw in that a hint of goodness and thought that this might draw her out of hell. So they lowered an onion on a long stalk down into hell and called on the woman to take hold. And as she did – they began to draw her out of the lake of fire. But others seeing that she was being drawn out clung to her clothes, and miraculously many people were being drawn out of hell – until the woman realised what was happening and spat and screamed at them – get off! this is My onion!! and at once the onion stalk broke and they all fell back into the fire.

Well, what we might ask is the parallel between that sad story and our thoughts on Jesus – on our discomfort with him being set apart – like no other . . . well it is simply this – that it is precisely because he is not like us, that He is able to draw us out, to draw us upwards – to draw us into His life – and our cutting him down is like the cutting of the onion stalk. We are saying to Him – don’t be different!! We can’t attain to you – stay down here with us. But he says, why would you stay down there – no you cannot attain to me – so I will come down – to draw you up.

Christ does not come to us to leave us where we are. All our attempts to deny his otherness – that he is like no other – prevent him from doing what he comes to do – to draw us up into the fulness of his life. A life for which we have very little feeling because I suggest we have given little time to contemplating his glory – we are not thirsty for the Life he brings.

Until His Life is released into the world at Pentecost He alone is baptised of the Spirit – perhaps those who had not yet received the Holy Spirit in our reading from Acts were those whom Jesus disciples had baptised before his Passion as John recounts in his gospel. He passes through death, to be raised to new Life – so that we might follow him – so that we might ourselves follow that path – so that we might know His Life, as he baptises us with the Holy Spirit – with His Life.

As I said last week – our faith is not a set of ideas – a moral scheme for living better – a set of ideologies – it is not even About Jesus – it is Christ – His Life is our Faith The more our lives are turned to him, shaped around him, the more we will find the Life he offers us – and to go back to that story of the sad woman – the more, seeing that we are being drawn up to Life in him, others will want to hang onto our coat tails and be drawn up also.

So let us not be quick to turn from the contemplation of his glory, for as St Paul tells us that is key to the transformation of our lives, as we ‘contemplating the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another;’

Our Psalm today is one of the great Psalms of contemplation ‘What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him – yet you have made him a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honour’

Sometimes we hear that we now know so much more of the Wonders and scale of the universe that we have a far better grasp on our finitude than those of old – yet most of us have grown up under light polluted skies and have little sense of the carpet of life of the desert sky. We may see photographs from the Hubble space telescope in the comfort of our living rooms, but it is a far cry from the Glory of the sky when the cold bites our bones.

The Psalmist is full of wonder at the place God has assigned to human beings – yet our Genesis text finds the human trying to define himself over and against God – trying as it were to conquer the heavens, to make a name for himself. Not content with the glory and honour with which the Creator would crown him.

‘Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord’ is a text full of ambiguity. It is all too easy to read of this man who has made a name for himself and built cities – great in the eyes of his fellow humans no doubt is the one who built cities. He gets honour and glory from men and we too might fete and honour such a one – but the Lord crowns with glory and Honour those whom he chooses.

Nimrod’s kingdom begins with Babel – the centre of the biblical rebellion against God – of those who build a name for themselves – and it is from Babel that we are scattered like ashes across the face of the earth. Dust we are, and to dust we shall return

Nimrod’s process of unification is shown to be one that is anti-God – as all such human plans are.

So it is that The Human, The One comes – the one who gives life to those He chooses – the one who does not accept honour from men, but only seeks and accepts the Glory that comes from above and so fulfils the human vocation to dwell in the space between the heavens and the Earth. But who will believe Him? Who will trust in the one who does not seek his own Glory?

Our opening readings are about ‘Beginnings’, so very appropriate for today, and So very appropriate they are. For they set the foundation for everything that is to come, and indeed encourage us to open our eyes to all that Is.

John opens his gospel deliberately to announce the New Creation that is in Christ, or perhaps better, that Christ is the fulfillment of the ancient Genesis text. ‘All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being’ [NRSV]
A reminder for us that New Life in Christ is All encompassing.

These things are literally ‘too wonderful for us’. There are only two ways we can respond truthfully to this Glory. Initially we Must give up on trying to ‘get our head round these words – then either despair, or turn to God in trust. We can either flee from that which comes to us, or choose rather to stay put – to sink our roots into the bank of the streams of life giving water, these Deep Origins which are all at once past, present and future. Meditate on this Word. Allow it to come to birth in us . . . and so develop a hunger for more.

Psalm 1 sets our heart straight, that we might receive life. It is the necessary precursor to all Scriptural reading. We Pray – then we Read – then we Meditate on our reading, and then it brings forth the fruit of praise